Saudi technology guards against women escaping

By BENJAMIN JOFFE-WALT / THE MEDIA LINE

July 25, 2010 15:58

Air flight will trigger SMS to 'guardian.'

4 minute read.

saudi women arab 88.
(photo credit:Courtesy)

When women’s rights activist Wajiha Al-Huwaidar flew out of Saudi Arabia last week for a holiday in Italy with her family, she was hoping for a brief respite from what she describes as the ‘gender apartheid kingdom.’

As she left, her husband received an automated SMS text message from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informing him that his wife, legally considered his ‘dependant’ under Saudi Arabia’s strict gendered guardianship system, had left the country.

Al-Huwaidar’s husband received the same text, she learned last week,
when she had left Saudi Arabia on another recent trip to Germany.

“It is sad how Saudis use technology in a way not intended to be used
for,” she told The Media Line. “In Saudi Arabia, technology brings more
restrictions and misery! They use it to have more control over people’s
lives, especially women.”

“I am an adult woman that has been earning my own income for over a
decade now but according to the Saudi government, I am a dependent until
the day I die because of my gender,” Al-Huwaidar said. “I'm not sure
how it works, but lately we get to be informed through our mobile phones
about our bank accounts, sale ads, jobs, donation campaigns and others.
I'm sure it's a new service that the government is using for different
purposes. They don’t state which country the dependent left for, but
simply state that they did leave.”

Saudi authorities did not respond to requests to comment on this
article, and whether the text messages received by Al-Huwaidar’s husband
indicate a new system of monitoring or a case-specific effort to track
Al-Huwaidar’s movements.

“I’m a member of the Saudi women’s rights group and my husband did not
tell me he received a message which means he probably didn’t,” Reem
Asaad, a Saudi economics lecturer and women’s rights activist told The
Media Line. “It’s possible that Wajiha [Al-Huwaidar] has been
spotlighted by the authorities.”

Saudi Arabia’s strict patriarchal guardianship system requires all women
to be represented by men -- either their husband, father or son -- in
all public and official spheres of life. Women are not allowed to drive,
inherit, divorce or gain custody of children; and cannot enter most
public spaces without a male guardian.

“My husband had to fill out a form at the passport control authority to
allow me and my children to travel outside the country whenever I like,”
Asaad explained. “He has to renew that with each passport every five
years. Most women travel this way.”

Nadya Khalife, the Middle East Women's Rights researcher at Human Rights
Watch, said the guardianship system presents an enormous barrier to
Saudi women’s freedom of movement.

“Guardianship is a really complicated system and has a great effect not
only on women’s travel within Saudi Arabia but also to the outside
world, prohibiting women’s freedom of movement in a very critical way,”
she told The Media Line. “A woman cannot leave the country without the
permission of her guardian, who might be her youngest son. The text
messages just adds another level of controlling women’s movements. I
guess they’re getting more technologically advanced.”

The Saudi government has gone to great efforts recently to improve the
image of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of
Vice, the country’s religious police who are tasked with enforcing the
guardianship system.

Earlier this year the commission’s national director was fired and the
new director, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Humain, announced a series of
training programs and a special unit to handle complaints against the
religious police.

“The government has promised to change the system and said that women
over 40 can travel a bit without a guardian,” Khalife said. “But from
what we’ve seen and the complaints we’ve received from women in Saudi,
the system is still very much in place. Women still need their
guardian’s permission to travel, to study, to work, and even to go to a
court to complain about domestic violence. So there’s a bit of a
disconnect between the promises that have been made and the reality on
the ground.”

Dr. Edit Schlaffer, founder of the advocacy group Women Without Borders,
said the Saudi guardianship system is in violation of international
law.

“The guardian system is one of these things that is not justified by the
Qu’ran,” she told The Media Line. “No other Muslim country has a system
like this. It’s a unique Saudi interpretation of Islam and according to
the freedom of movement provisions under the Human Rights Act the
guardianship system is totally unacceptable to the international
community. But unfortunately, women’s rights are not at the forefront of
international humans rights issues.”

Dr. Schlaffer, who recently concluded an extensive study on gender in
Saudi Arabia, argued that while there is a growing Saudi movement
opposed to the guardianship system, outside pressure will not help.

“There is a growing movement within Saudi Arabia which is supported by
women and forward-looking men who oppose the guardianship system,” she
said. “But Saudi Arabia is outside the international time zone so change
is extremely slow.”

“At the same time I feel that interferance from outside is helpful,” she
continued. “It creates new blockages. The way forward is to help civil
society within Saudi to provide a space for change.”

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